TASK FORCE HAWK
As noted earlier in Chapter Three, within days after Operation Allied Force commenced, General Clark asked the Army to deploy a contingent of its AH-64 Apache attack helicopters to the combat zone to provide a better close-in capability against enemy tanks and APCs than that offered by fixed-wing fighters, which remained restricted to operating at medium altitudes. Clark initially had hoped to deploy this force to Macedonia, where the roads and airfields were better and the terrain less challenging. The Macedonian government, however, declined to grant permission because it was already swamped by the flood of Kosovar refugees, so Clark sought Albania instead as the best available alternative.[119] Within four hours, NATO had approved Clark’s request. It took more than a week, however, for the U.S. and Albanian governments to endorse the deployment. That approval finally came on Day 12 of Allied Force. The U.S. Defense Department at first indicated that it would take up to 10 days to deploy the package. In the end, it took 17 days just to field the first battalion of Apaches, which arrived in Albania on April 21.
At first glance, the idea of using Apaches to reinforce NATO’s fixed-wing aircraft seemed entirely appropriate, considering that the AH-64 had been acquired by the Army expressly to engage and destroy enemy armor. As Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon put it in announcing the deployment, they would offer NATO “the type of tank-killing capability that the bad weather has denied us… the capability to get up close and personal to the [VJ] units in Kosovo.”[120] In a normal weapons load, the Apache mounts up to 16 Hellfire antitank missiles, 76 folding-fin antipersonnel rockets, and 1,200 rounds of 30mm armor-piercing ammunition. With that armament, it gained deserved distinction by destroying more than 500 Iraqi armored vehicles during Operation Desert Storm. In Desert Storm, the Apaches had deployed as an organic component of two fully fielded U.S. Army corps. But in this case, the Army was being asked by SACEUR to cobble together an ad hoc task force designed to operate essentially on its own, without the backstopping support of a fielded U.S. ground combat presence in the theater. The Army is not configured to undertake such ad-hoc deployments, and its units do not train for them. Instead, an Apache battalion normally deploys only as part of a larger Army division or corps, with all of the latter’s organically attached elements.
Accordingly, the Army was driven by its own standard operating procedures to supplement the two Apache battalions with an additional heavy contingent of ground forces, air defenses, military engineers, and headquarters overhead. As the core of this larger force complement, now designated Task Force (TF) Hawk, the Apaches were drawn from the Army’s 11th Aviation Brigade stationed at Illesheim, Germany. The deployment package included, however, not only the two battalions of AH-64s, but also 26 UH-60L Blackhawk and CH-47D Chinook helicopters from the 12th Aviation Regiment at Wiesbaden, Germany. Additional assets whose deployment was deemed essential for supporting the Apaches included a light infantry company; a multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) platoon with three MLRS vehicles; a high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle (HMMWV, or “humvee”) antitank company equipped with 38 armed utility vehicles; a military intelligence platoon; a military police platoon; and a combat service support team. The Army further determined a need for its Apaches to be accompanied by a mechanized infantry company equipped with 14 Bradley AFVs; an armor company with 15 M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks; a howitzer battery with eight 155mm artillery pieces; a construction engineer company; a short-range air defense battery with eight more Bradley AFVs armed with Stinger infrared SAMs; a smoke generator platoon; a brigade headquarters complement; and diverse other elements. In all, to backstop the deployment of 24 attack helicopters to Albania, TF Hawk ended up being accompanied by a support train of no fewer than 5,350 Army personnel.
To be sure, there was a legitimate force-protection rationale behind this accompanying train of equipment and personnel. Unlike the Marines, who deployed 24 F/A-18D fighters to Hungary only a few weeks thereafter and had them flying combat missions within days with nothing even approaching TF Hawk’s overhead and support baggage, Army planners had to be concerned about the inherent risks of deploying a comparable number of Apaches on terrain that was not that of a NATO ally, that lacked any semblance of a friendly ground force presence, and that could easily have invited a VJ cross-border attack in the absence of a U.S. ground force sufficient to render an attack an unacceptable gamble for VJ commanders.[121]
As one might have expected with so much additional equipment and personnel, however, the Apache deployment soon encountered the predictable consequences of the Army’s decision. It was at first estimated that 200 USAF C-17 transport sorties would be needed to airlift the assorted support elements with which the Apaches had been burdened. (The Tirana airport lacked the required taxiway and ramp specifications to accommodate the more capacious C-5.) In the end, it took more than 500 C-17 sorties, moving some 22,000 short tons in all, to transfer TF Hawk in its entirety to Albania. Commenting later on the deployment, one Army officer complained that the Army is “still organized to fight in the Fulda Gap.” Even the outgoing Army chief of staff, General Dennis Reimer, admitted in an internal memo to senior Army staff officers once the deployment package had finally been assembled in theater that the manifold problems encountered by TF Hawk had underscored a “need for more adaptive force packaging methodology.”[122]
In all events, the Apaches with their attached equipment and personnel arrived in Albania in late April. No sooner had the Army declared all but one of the aircraft ready for combat on April 26 when, only hours later, one crashed at the Tirana airfield in full view of reporters who had been authorized to televise the flight. (The 24th Apache had developed hydraulic trouble en route and remained on the ground in Italy.) Neither crewmember was injured, but the accident was an inauspicious start for the widely touted deployment. Less than two weeks later, on May 5, a second accident occurred, this time killing both crewmembers during a night training mission some 46 miles north of Tirana. The aircraft was carrying a full load of weapons and extra fuel. A subsequent investigation concluded that the first accident had been caused by the pilot’s having mistakenly landed short of his intended touchdown point.[123] The second was attributed to an apparent failure of the tail rotor because the aircraft had been observed to enter a rapid uncontrolled spiral during the last moments before its impact with the ground.
109
Another reported problem with the Macedonia basing option was the fact that it would have been a violation of the Dayton accords to station any offensive forces within the territorial confines of the former Yugoslavia. Albania was thus the only realistic alternative.
110
Bradley Graham and Dana Priest, “Allies to Begin Flying Refugees Abroad,”
111
That said, it bears noting that the threat of Serbian forces coming across the Albanian border did not appear to be a matter of great concern to anyone in the Allied Force command hierarchy
112
Elaine M. Grossman, “Army’s Cold War Orientation Slowed Apache Deployment to Balkans,”
113
Paul Richter and Lisa Getter, “Mechanical Error, Pilot Error Led to Apache Crashes,”